17th January
By this day I had developed my research to basing my work off Yves Klien and as my tutorial was at the end of the day I took the opportunity to use the facilities at the library as they have such a range of books. I spent the majority of the day researching his work and taking notes into my sketchbook and actually found it really fascinating as a lot of my work has been really conceptual of late and I haven't had a chance to study artist outside modern art. I was also pleased to find that his work correlated with my idea really well and had very similar themes; I made sure to write this all down in my sketchbook and scanned as many pages as I could and then from that cut certain extracts to stick in my book.
By the end of the day I had a group discussion which is always interesting as you get to see other people's work and everyone on our table had a real range of ideas. Not only were the concepts very different but everyone was using a range of material and techniques from tracing paper to making their publication into a pack of cards. When introducing my idea of sex on a page it had mixed reactions and tended to shock people and I think it was harder for people to be objective as I was sitting right there whereas the audience I am aiming to sell this to will not know the age, the gender or the name of the person, it will simple be intimate thing from someone you will probably never meet. So perhaps I should use other models to make it easier for people in my class to be objective.
12th January
Today we had critique and it was really tough turn around because we had to complete both fonts and a specimen. I luckily finished and so did most of the people on my table so we got to have a really good discussion about what worked and what didn't. I was told that my finger font was the most original but they also agreed with me when I said it couldn't really be used fro everyday use. However, they liked how I turned it into a book cover for my specimen as I explained that I thought it worked on a book cover becuase it was eye catching so it would grab people's attention and if they couldn't understanding it they could always see what it said on the spin of the book.
From looking at other people's work I learnt that the art form of typography has a lot more room for creative freedom than I originally thought as everyone's typeface was very original and unique to their style. After critique we were told about our next project Hear make Heard. We were introduced to the British Audio Library and were told to simple listen to audio's till something caught our eye and we were also shown some of the previous years work which was really impressive. They all looked incredibly professional and we were given a quick run down of the things that tend to sell well, which products worked the best and where to go for book binding which was all really useful but I still quite nervous after seeing how high the standard was.
10th January
We just continued working today so I simply was working on developing my fonts, primarily my tear shaped font as my finger font is predominantly done apart from a few tweaks and changes. It was the oval font that I was really focusing on as I was trying to adapt it from a sketch into something more substantial. I had a group tutorial towards the end of the day though which was very interesting as I got to see some other people's work and we had all done completely different things so we could all learn from each other.
The tutorial was helpful as I was given clear advice on how we recognise certain letters, for instance, you needed the curvature at the top of a M for people to recognise it as a M and. We also got told about the direction of a letter and how a letter must follow their set direction for our eye to be able to tell the letters apart instantaneously. However there was a lot of comments that my finger font was very abstract, almost to the point of not discerning which letter is which and I could completely understand where they were coming from but in my mind this typeface would never be used for something in which clarity was needed like for a sign or a leaflet. In my mind it might be used for a book cover or a film poster as it was eye catching but still readable.
9th January
Today was a tube strike so it took me four hours to get to archway which was really inconvenient as I missed some of the beginning of the lesson. However, by the time I got there we had to get objects that belong to us and just sketch any sort of letter we could see inside it. For instance, I could see bits of my computer charger that looked like the letter A or aspects of my water bottle that I could transform into a letter T. At first I was a bit sceptical about this but after you started playing with the shapes it was really freeing as I stopped imagining the letter as a restricted shape and started exploring other ways to express a letter S or the letter Q.
The best font that I developed came from a rough abstract sketch from the corner of my pen. It developed into this tear drop shaped letters with lines in them to contort them into different shapes. By the end of it I was actually really amazed I'd been able to make a whole rough sketch of a alphabet purely from a drawing of a pen however I'm quite worried as I now have to develop it into a actual font instead of just a sketch in my sketchbook.
5th January
When I first hear we were doing typograohy I must admit I was really nervous about the project because I always saw typography as a really dull artform and I was worried I wouldn not be able to master the skills required to make a font or if I did make one they would look really unprofessional due to lack of interest. HOwever once I sstarted doing my reseach I found that there is actaaully som ereally nnotive way to create a typeface. For instance, I didnt relaise how abstract yu could go but after viewing some fonts that either used a really unusal material or were jsut very minilistic in their deisgin it gave me some hope that I might be able to make something quite interesting with this project.
As I couldn't be there for the first day and I did not want tto get bahind on my work I started develping my own font after studing the information given to us on moodle and looking at my own reseach. I already knew I really wanted to explore using photography not only becuase this is a medium I am quite familiar with but becuase I still didn't fully know all the techniques to make a font through drawing or photoshp. I also knew formmy resech that I really wanted to explore the human body as I found that example sthat used this were the most dynamic and interesting. So my ideas develpoed into using my hand to creat letters of the alapehebt, some were used by pushing my hand up to the glass otherrs by contorting my fingers. Then to make sure there was some consistency I used a makeshift grid on my computer so they ould be in alignment. I think the outcome is quiet interesting and I used a blakc background to really hightlight the font.
1st December
For critique we were each given a certain thing to look at it people's work, I was given 'research'. So I left my work to go look around at everyone else's and I and everyone else who was given the work research came to the conclusion that our class on the whole does very little of it. There would be bits here and there on workflow but not a considerable amount in the sketchbooks with solid references, I felt really frustrated with myself as I had done research on the colour and sizes of the Barbie boxes but I had spent all my time on developing the actual product as I thought that would be more important to show on critique day as I did not even think we were going to look at research so I did not prioritise it over the the final product. However my product was used as a example for the design group to show a range of colours as a lot of the products used quite monotone colours which I was happy about but had to admit the reason mine had a lot of colour was becuase I was trying to produce a realistic product of a already very colourful product; my tutors also pointed out that some of my text was pixleated and said this was due to word and I was going to need to move it onto to illustrator which I knew already as to use the A2 printer I was going to have to make to a JPEG.
19th January
Today we had a Bookbinding workshop with Ignacia and I took the opportunity to develop my project from my critique the day before. For instance I was recommended to make a pocket for my paper to go inside and I started to play around with designs and even though I did like the final product, which was a watercolour bed sketch with the date and time written inside it, it felt very analytical and impersonal consider what it was holding inside. So I started thinking about using material to link it even more to bed, pillows etc. and started experimenting with paining and drawing on fabric, taking some inspiration from Tracey Emin's rough sketches of couples lying in bed together.
Afterwards I went with a group of people to Sheperd.s bookbinding just to see what it was like but ended up buying the paper I was going to use there. I already knew I was blue paper as I was told in critique that using blue paint on white paper looked too much like as Yves Klein knock off so I am using blue paper and white paint instead. I found that book cloth materials works perfectly as it feels like a material but fold like a piece of paper which is ideal for my project. We are now given the rest of the week to simply work on our publications.
24th November
I had developed research to pitch for ideas today and somewhere through this research the idea of a modern Barbie popped into my mind and I felt a sort of repressed anger when looking at the Barbies I and many other girls had grown up with, she was ridiculously skinny, had no gentilities let alone any sexuality, no body hair and no matter what job she had she always had to seem beautiful. I felt let down and frustrated that this is what girls today were looking at as well and how I already knew they were set up to fail on this unrealistic standard so I experimented with the idea of different Barbies that represented a more modern women.
There would be 'doesn't give a shit Barbie' that does not wear make up and is completely okay with that trasngender Barbie, any sort of Barbie that retracted away from the norm in a comical sense and would make older women want to buy it to somewhat relive their childhood with the dolls they wish they had. So I presented this idea to my group along with a back up idea of having male nipple covers to go on top of female nipples which I did like but thought was to simple of a design and not very challenging. The Barbie idea went well with them making some suggestions on how to manipulate the dolls and even some idea on where ot buy them which was very useful.
6th December
Over the evening I had developed my little owl character and made a quick user journey of him popping up every five minutes. It was interesting how each of us in our group had interpreted it in our own unique way as in my own the owl grew bigger and looked more intimidating as time went on and it;s colour became darker as well whilst remaining in the night theme colour scheme I created. The main difference in mine I suppose was that mine was a lot more aggressive as after the fifth reminder the phone would lock as the bird flew away as I felt that if someone would bother to download a app to make them go to sleep they would really want it to be effective.
We then had to move table and critique other peoples work as they critiqued ours which was useful as it gave me a analytical look on how some apps idea was really obvious and others just was too confusing for someone to understand. When I saw the critique on mine it was a bit frustrating because some people had turned back the pages and looked at my mind maps from yesterday and thought that was my final app design and therefore critiqued old work such as a original app name that was discarded a long time ago which they said they did not like but again meant very little to me as it had already been discarded so I learnt I had to be more clear on what someone was actually meant to be critiquing.
I then spent the rest of the day developing a logo which I think initially I went to abstract with as we learnt though a logo exercise that the best logo's were the simplest but my owl character designs were quite detailed so if I made my logo to simple it would not match with my app design image. So I was suggested to just simplify the owl character for the logo design so I simply file din the outline of the owl character fro the logo so you could still see that it was my app but the logo was not to crowded.
After college I went to use the library computers to figure out how to move my template form word to Illustrator, it was extremely frustrating as I had never used illustrator before and did not really know what I was doing and spent a lot of hours getting horrible results. So I thought I'd try out Photoshop, not becuase I knew how to use that either just because I thought it was worth a try becuase I was getting nowhere with Illustrator. After a while I got the hang of it manage to make a template for my wage gap Barbie box but by that time it was very late and I had to go home before I could make another template.
8th December
Today was critique for our app product and even though I found this product interesting and I learnt a lot from it I was ready to be done with it as app design is something I am not that interested in and this has confirmed that I do not want to go into it in the future.
The critique was structured by having all the people with the same word sit on the same table and then have us move to a completely different table and fill out a questionnaire on whichever app design was put in front of us. I critiqued too very interesting apps and which ever table we ere sitting on for the final app we as a table had to decided which app was best and the app I critique was chosen becuase it was so interesting as it let art student find art and exhibitions around London in a easy simple way. When I got back to my table I found lots of useful advice on my app, a lot was focused on design which was helpful.
Over lunch I had to use the computer's again to go on Photoshop to make the second box template, this one was a lot easier as I knew what I was doing now and which controls to press and I converted them both to JPEG's so the could easily be printed off. When we got back from lunch we had a talk about app design from a bbc app designer which was interesting as I saw how much work is put into making the user not only want to use the app but to make it easy for the to use. The best picked apps from each table then had to stand up and discuss their apps which was useful as it gave everyone a chance to question the app including the bbc expert.
After this was over I had to rush over to kings cross as we were in archway to get to the A2 printer room before it closed, I had been there before but it had been really unsuccessful as I knew so little about it and was told they would not print something from a word document which was extremely stressful as I only knew hoe to use word at the time. This time I handed over my memory stick to them with JPEG's to print of a prayed that it would work and it would print in the right size for me to use for a box template as this was my last chance as the sale was on Saturday and I would be able to both redo the box templates and make the boxes on Friday. Luckily one of the templates worked perfectly and fitted exactly like the original but the other one was far too small so I quickly had to remake the template which was extremely stressful as the printer closed very soon, luckily I did it in time and went home with my 12 A2 pieces of paper.
5th Decemeber
Over the weekend I had studied my most used apps and my user journey on them, it was quite interesting when I showed my apps to my table as some of them had never heard of them, such as the buzzfeed app. One of my chosen apps also sparked a discussion as we complained how the Uber app was extremely difficult to use and how this was ironic as most of the people using them are usually drunk and I admitted not only did I struggle using it sober but I also thought the design of it was over complicated and frankly just quite ugly. After we all discussed ideas as a class on what we found a useful app it became pretty clear that a popular app had to be easy to use and fill a need that we have as a user.
After this discussion we were put into groups of three and given two words, my groups words were find/lost. We were told to focus on the the positive word first and brainstorm ideas and it was interesting that everyone in my group interpreted it differently, my interpretation was that when I most need to find people is on a night out with my friends as I was always getting lost and and I called the app 'finding your nemos' as a fun play on words and it would basically tell you where all your friends were throughout the night and you could let out a signal fro them to find you.
We then had to focus on the word lost and our group just kept spitting out ideas which was extremely useful as even though we wouldn't use that idea it would inspire another one as I suggested that the words 'losing sleep' were interesting as all of us felt extremely tired around the table but I pointed out that I do not think anyone want a app that tells them how much sleep their losing. However that progressed to a app idea based on the premise of helping you to stop losing sleep by reminding you to go to bed which I thought was extremely useful for our generation as were always wasting time in on our phones before bed, We even developed a little owl character which would remind you to go to sleep every 5 minutes and get more frustrated as you ignore it.
28th November
Over the weekend I really just had to tackle the ideas which were going on inside my mind as I started doubting not only if I could adapt the Barbies but If I would have enough time to make every type of Barbie to represent the positive modern women as their were so many variations. I really struggled to come to terms with what was realistic and what people would be willing to buy as I started looking more into the negative aspect like 'wage gap Barbie' or even a reference to the Trump quote with 'grab her by the pussy Barbie' and even though I liked this idea more I was worried that it wouldn't sell as it would be too negative. So I came up with the solution of donating all profits to the charity UK feminista as I motivator for people to buy it as it would not just be a product to complain about women's rights but it would also show how we could improve it.
So on the day I had brought in all my research plus this mini prototype boxes I had made with all the writing in the specific font I wanted so they would look as realistic as possible for people to judge. So we walked around the room and looked at everyone's which was very interesting and I also got to witness people really liking my design as I saw them picking it up and laughing which is exactly what I wanted and I wanted to bring people in with humour and then make them think. I then continued adapting my boxes and came to the conclusion that I could not fit the whole box template on a A3 piece of paper as it wouldn't fit in the Barbie which was really frustrating as it meant not only was printing going to be more expensive but it was going to be really difficult to construct the box.
17th November
We started off the day by listening to music and developing a graphic score on paper with the materials around us, at first my drawings were very abstract and colour but through our tutor critiquing our images at the end of every song gave me stronger sense of what they were looking for, much more analytical, down to earth portrayals of the music. Even though I could understand why this would make sense if you wanted a viewer to understand the music by merely looking at the work iI did struggle because it was not really my type of style of art and I felt quite restricted.
We then progressed to making our instruments and I brought in a varied amount of materials to work with and i experimented with a couple of object but found the one that made the most interesting noise was rice falling down a dented metal tray. However even though it made a interesting noise it looked quite simple so I adapted it to making it multiple trays on wooden sticks that I could manipulate to make a beautiful intense rain like sound.
We then got put into groups to make our 'band' and were left to make our 30 second recording which was a bit of a challenge at first but we worked off the rain noise of my instrument and progressed into making it seem like some sort of storm, starting off with little rain drops and progressing to a full blown on pour. I felt our recording went very well and we worked very quickly in the allotted tie frame as due to our groups timetable we had to finish it that afternoon.
30th Novemeber
I went to use the printers at the library today to primarily just develop the size of the box, it took and extremely long time as I had to move each individual segment of the box template onto their own separate A3 piece of paper and then from that I had to keep printing and tweaking the box to develop the exact right size for the box to be to fit the Barbie and look aesthetically pleasing. After a lot of experimenting to find the right size I then had to find the exact right colour and add a couple of Barbie's iconic symbols to make it look like a realistic Barbie box, I decided to make the two different boxes different shades of pink not only because I learnt Barbie does not have a definitive colour as it kept changing from box to box but also to create separation so people would notice more clearly that they were too different boxes. After that I had to cut out the template segments and stick them onto card to construct the box, from this first prototype I learnt a lot about the construction:
- When folding the box score first to prevent cracked edges which look awful.
- When cutting the opening slot at the front use a scalpel of the paper would fray.
- Use spray mount not prit stick to glue on the paper becuase it will start to peel.
- Most importantly we were going to have to print on A2 becuase printing each segment off on A3 looked unprofessional as you could see the white gaps inbetween each segment.